If you were unexpectedly given $5K cash, WWYD? - Page 3

[weliveintheforest]

I would order my kids some ruskovilla woolens, catch up all our bills and put the rest on our debt.

[philomom]

Pay off debt.

[thatgirliknew]

Practically speaking: I would pay off my our credit cards. DH is about $1000 and mine is about $2000. Then with the remaining $2000, IF all bills were caught up on, I would take my husband clothes shopping at Kohls and I would be hitting up the thrift stores for clothes. We both have something like 5 outfits we wear constantly...

Fun: I would take the family to Disney World.

[dealic]

I would pay off my car and have the rest for first and lasts on an apartment so my husband and I can move out of my parents' house. That's my current goal and 5k would just about do it. I have 2 months to get the first and lasts before we have to move so it would be perfect timing. Then I could focus on paying off my credit cards.

I wouldn't do anything "fun" because having our own place would be awesome!

[sunnysandiegan]

Well, to follow up, we did the following thus far:

$2400 cash for new furnace, but we haven't gotten very far on that (I am waiting for a few reasons: see how long we can go without heat, see if next payment is coming for taxes, more time to research it once DD is back in school later this month, see what Dad's travel plans are in the next two months for DIY install, etc.)
$700 deposited to savings
$500 to DH for whatever (He spent some of it on me for Christmas and put the rest in his checking account, I believe.)
$500 to me for whatever (I saved it all. I had already gotten his gifts.)
$200 purchase of Costco stock
$175 charitable donations (3 organizations - one picked by each of us)
$125 gift cards to visiting family (plus $30 in free gift cards)
$83 spent on $175 in gift certificates to a local spa + restaurant
$23 spent on $235 in gift certificates to local restaurants (plus a free $25 GC to restaurant.com)
$100 DH took out of the saved cash (was supposed to be $2500 cash) for something important, but I have forgotten what it was...
and the rest ($194) we used to buy local, organic produce (ready to eat and for planting) and local, raw honey and other such food items from various Farmer's Markets nearby and to buy extra groceries for holiday house guests and for other cash purchases instead of using our checking account debit card on things I didn't care about tracking or require cash anyway...

[ollineeba]

Pay off some medical bills.. pad the emergency fund. And maybe plan a weekend or night away somewhere.

[StormySar]

I would NOT assume the guy will pay the rest and put the next chunk towards taxes. Look, it took this long to get paid - what if it takes another 5 years for the next chunk? Things can always crop up and ruin the best of plans to pay people back, so I'd pay the taxes now and get the furnace, and use the other chunk of money for fun later when it's actually in your hands. If you want to have more money for fun out of this chunk, do the install yourself.

[2lilsweetfoxes]

Practical: Pay off/down credit cards

Fun: A big-screen TV, surround sound, and a cruise

[sunnysandiegan]

To put everyone's mind at ease, we can afford the taxes now with existing funds. We can also afford the furnace now with existing funds. I just don't *want* to spend existing funds on BOTH, KWIM. I'd rather have the unexpected cash cover one of them and either the next payment (which is loosely "expected" in the next few months) cover the other or have our existing funds cover the other.

[cristina47454]

I regularly get little windfalls unexpectedly...$500 here, $2000 there (investments, gifts, tax refunds) and I always feel flat footed. In our situation it almost always goes to credit card debt (we have a HUGE balance) and emergency fund (dh's work has been very unstable).

When dh's work becomes more stable and we have a solid snowball again and a decent EF (hopefully in 2010!), any extra money is going toward a new king size mattress and a family vacation!! Well, probably a new car fund too. (Our 1996 Jeep Grand Cherokee is past 275k miles!)

[grahamsmom98]

Two words in your original post caught my eye: "potential asbestos"

Before you do anything, have the area/material in question tested by an approved testing laboratory (they are listed in the Yellow Pages under "Asbestos").

If you have to have it removed, be aware that it is costly.

We had to have all the ceilings in my late Dad's house removed ("popcorn"-style from 1970) before we could do any repairs/paint. There were multiple cracks in the ceiling, in several locations, due to a partial roof collapse (severe snow load). The contractor couldn't repair them because of the asbestos (a general contractor cannot do it in our state without specialized training certification). The cracks were too large to try and patch and paint over, the "repairs" would be horribly obvious and we were going to sell the house. We had no choice, the asbestos ceilings had to go.

I called two different asbestos abatement companies (both were recommended and certified by our state's hazardous materials office) and got quotes from each. Both were several thousand dollars.

We could have done it ourselves, but the health risks certainly were not worth it. It takes a LOT of prep work, time and materials, and is not something I would recommend being done as a DIY project. It is easier, cheaper and SAFER to hire it out to the experts.

They came in and it took a couple of days to do the work. The ceiling looked like crap when they were done (they scrape the texture off, down to the drywall). We had planned on having it re-textured anyway (no asbestos!), but had to go with a heavier design than originally desired (because of gouges and tears). Take this into consideration, if you have asbestos abatement done, as a possible added repair cost.

We were fortunate in that Dad's insurance company paid for the removal (special circumstances, most insurance companies will not pay for it just because their policy owners desire it).

The ceilings looked great when all was said and done! It certainly udated the house and the asbestos removal was a great selling point.

Anyway, I just had to mention it when I saw you had mentioned it!

[sunnysandiegan]

Originally Posted by grahamsmom98

Two words in your original post caught my eye: "potential asbestos"

Before you do anything, have the area/material in question tested by an approved testing laboratory (they are listed in the Yellow Pages under "Asbestos").

If you have to have it removed, be aware that it is costly.

We had to have all the ceilings in my late Dad's house removed ("popcorn"-style from 1970) before we could do any repairs/paint. There were multiple cracks in the ceiling, in several locations, due to a partial roof collapse (severe snow load). The contractor couldn't repair them because of the asbestos (a general contractor cannot do it in our state without specialized training certification). The cracks were too large to try and patch and paint over, the "repairs" would be horribly obvious and we were going to sell the house. We had no choice, the asbestos ceilings had to go.

I called two different asbestos abatement companies (both were recommended and certified by our state's hazardous materials office) and got quotes from each. Both were several thousand dollars.

We could have done it ourselves, but the health risks certainly were not worth it. It takes a LOT of prep work, time and materials, and is not something I would recommend being done as a DIY project. It is easier, cheaper and SAFER to hire it out to the experts.

They came in and it took a couple of days to do the work. The ceiling looked like crap when they were done (they scrape the texture off, down to the drywall). We had planned on having it re-textured anyway (no asbestos!), but had to go with a heavier design than originally desired (because of gouges and tears). Take this into consideration, if you have asbestos abatement done, as a possible added repair cost.

We were fortunate in that Dad's insurance company paid for the removal (special circumstances, most insurance companies will not pay for it just because their policy owners desire it).

The ceilings looked great when all was said and done! It certainly udated the house and the asbestos removal was a great selling point.

Anyway, I just had to mention it when I saw you had mentioned it!

Yes, we have gone down the asbestos testing route already. The interesting thing is we live in an HOA that was built in three phases. Our place was in the last phase, thankfully, and we have had none of the big health issues (like asbestos) that people in the first phase have and the second phase folks have some of. We already redid our ceilings and some walls, etc.

The issue now is potential fiberglass in the ductwork when we get the new furnace. It is always something with older homes, well with homeownership period.

[sapphire_chan]

We're expecting a $5000 bonus for dh in a few weeks and it's going to pay off our last credit card.

At which point the money we'd been paying towards the credit card will go into paying off our student loans.


Now, what I want to do with the money would be to travel some place with hot springs.